YAC Quantitative Data Report

A couple months ago I was tasked with coming up with a campaign to get young adults attending SIUE to become more aware of water equity issues and the need for land conservation as well as more involved with our partner HeartLands Conservancy. However, I can’t solve this problem straight out because there are many problems that will come up. The first problem that I have researched and explored is how young adults view nature. The way I went about answering this question was by conducting a survey based on the questions and new beliefs I wanted to explore with a wider range of people. The survey was open from 5pm on July 25th, 2025 to 9am on August 6th, 2025.

After viewing the results of my survey, I can confidently say that the environment that someone grows up in determines how they view nature. In my interviews, the three participants agreed and now almost all participants agreed as well. I initially thought that it wasn’t something that can be considered as fact because the answers I received to question 5, “Have you developed any biases because of where you live?” 12 people agreed that they experienced biases in themselves because of where they grew up, but 14 people were either neutral or disagreed with that question. This made me see a disagreement with that belief and I had to scrap my initial assumption. However, according to question 8, my belief might have held true. 

18 out of 22 responses included that your environment determines how interested you are in nature. Not only that, but the majority of people who disagreed or were neutral for question 5 said that your environment plays a factor in your interest. This doesn’t necessarily contradict their answer to the previous question or null their response in this one because depending on how you interpret the question will determine how you answer. Therefore, this has allowed me to open my mind to see a different side to an environment while also affirming my initial assumption.

Another realization I had is that us young adults have grown up in the United States. We constantly hear that people our age are just caught up in social media and technology. You see this in TV shows and movies, books and articles, and in our everyday experiences. This narrative has been drilled into our heads from a young age which in turn has caused us to take on this way of thinking. Some participants saw their counterparts as people who were consumed in their phones with no care about the world. However, the majority of participants who took the survey showed an interest for nature and a profound concern with taking care of the environment, it was completely contradictory from their thoughts.

*Responses from survey*

After reviewing the results from my survey, I was left with one overarching theme that surprised me: Young adults are very passionate and concerned when it comes to nature and they realize that it is something that we need to conserve. That statement by itself doesn’t surprise me, but the lack of faith that we have in our counterparts to understand that is what makes my head spin. We might lack knowledge about the nitty gritty details of what’s happening or needs to happen, but we don’t lack the knowledge that something needs to change.